EB Forum

Which way to roll your prints?

Which way to roll your prints?

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 11:24 am

by ygolohcysp

If you've ever wondered this, who do you think is the best person to ask? I asked a few different printers and summarized what I was told below. If anyone knows best IMHO, it's going to be the people producing the items. You can make your own judgement from there:

1. Always roll with the natural grain of the paper. Find it and roll that way if the print has never been rolled.
2. If the print has been rolled one way already, always roll it that way again. Do not try to counter roll.
3. A large screen print with no discernible paper grain direction that has not been rolled previously should be rolled ink side out.

If your print came ink side out the first time it was rolled, that was done on purpose to protect the ink, so you should thank the person doing so instead of complaining.

Re: Which way to roll your prints?

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 11:31 am

by RambosRemodeler

Always hot dog. Never hamburger duh

Re: Which way to roll your prints?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 9:04 am

by oldgreg

Start at one corner and roll diagonally has always worked well for me

Re: Which way to roll your prints?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 9:23 am

by PLUSH

Codeblue wrote:What feels best on the Peen?

Re: Which way to roll your prints?

Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2018 11:26 am

by peacedog

Ask a picture framer.

What I've learned over the years is that painted canvases, especially those with a heavy body of paint, should be rolled with the image on the outside. When the canvas is rolled it stretches the face slightly with low tension so that when the canvas is unrolled the body of paint has a desire to compress back together. Rolling paintings with the with the image inward compresses the surface first, then opens it up with high tension and can potentially crack the surface when restretching. The longer the painting stays rolled the higher the probability of cracking, especially oil paints that may dry out.

Paper prints are the opposite as paper fiber doesn't compress back together as easily. Save a few situations the ink body isn't thick enough to crack when unrolled. Thick, high-gloss paper might be the exception as the sheer surface is more prone to cracking itself. Beyond that, we have what I like to refer to as the flapping dickie effect in picture framing. It is much easier to secure the ends of a piece of paper curling upward and have it return to flat than it is to secure the center of a cupping piece of paper as you're using the tension of the roll to your advantage.. Even under the edge of a mat a print is more likely to "pooch" out at the center, floating is very problematic and requires more invasive hinging. Printed surfaces tend to be much more sensitive to scratching, any minor bit of grit caught in the roll, something on the surface it's unrolled onto, potential scraping against the inside of a tube, all potential problems. Paintings have a much more durable surface and can handle most . Extremely difficult to unroll by one's self as well, much higher probability of crimping it. You need two people to unroll it from end to end, a third to apply weights from the center. An outwardly rolled paper print is also more difficult to secure in a flatfile.